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The Adventures Of Champion
''The Adventures of Champion'' is an American adventure serial radio drama directed by William Burch about screen cowboy Gene Autry's horse Champion. Each 15-minute episode was broadcast weekday afternoons on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1949 and 1950. (Another source says that the program ran "June to November 1949.") The Western mystery tales focused on 12-year-old Ricky West, who is raised in the wilderness by his adoptive Uncle Smoky, and his German Shepherd named Rebel. Champion was depicted as a wild horse who let only Ricky ride him. While the series covered gold mines, rustlers, and Indian problems, the primary focus was on the faith and loyalty between a boy, a dog, and a horse. Stories ran in five installments each, beginning on Monday and ending on Friday. The radio series was a spin-off from ''Gene Autry's Melody Ranch'', a CBS radio network Sunday-afternoon program featuring the singing cowboy from 1940 to 1956. (Jack French and David S. Siegel, in their book ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Adventures Of Champion (TV Series)
''The Adventures of Champion'' is an American children's Western series that aired from September 23, 1955, to March 3, 1956, for 26 episodes on CBS. In the United Kingdom, the series was re-broadcast under the title ''Champion the Wonder Horse''. Unusually for a black and white show, the series was repeated on and off by the BBC in the UK throughout the 70s, 80s and early 90s, with its final BBC broadcast being the episode "The Stone Heart" on 23 January 1993. Synopsis Set in the 1880s in the American Southwest, 12-year-old Ricky North lives on a ranch with his uncle Sandy. Ricky has an uncanny ability to find himself in some kind of trouble, but is always rescued by his faithful friend Champion, the Wonder Horse, a wild stallion who has befriended Ricky. His adventures (and rescues) always involve Ricky's other constant companion, a German Shepherd named Rebel. Cast Champion as Champion, the Wonder Horse Barry Curtis as Ricky North Jim Bannon as Sandy North Blaze as Reb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story: "It is auditory in the physical dimension but equally powerful as a visual force in the psychological dimension." Radio drama includes plays specifically written for radio, docudrama, dramatized works of fiction, as well as plays originally written for the theatre, including musical theatre, and opera. Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s radio drama began losing its audience. However, it remains popular in much of the world. Recordings of OTR ( old-time radio) survive today in the audio archives of collectors, libraries and museums, as well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/Anaheim/California Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997. From 1934 to 1953, Autry appeared in 93 films, and between 1950 and 1956 hosted ''The Gene Autry Show'' television series. During the 1930s and 1940s, he personified the straight-shooting hero—honest, brave, and true. Autry was also one of the most important pioneering figures in the history of country music, considered the second major influential artist of the genre's development after Jimmie Rodgers. His singing cowboy films were the first vehicle to car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden age of U.S. radio drama, Mutual was best known as the original network home of ''Lone Ranger#Original radio series, The Lone Ranger'' and ''The Adventures of Superman (radio), The Adventures of Superman'' and as the long-time radio residence of ''The Shadow''. For many years, it was a national broadcaster for Major League Baseball on Mutual, Major League Baseball (including the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, All-Star Game and World Series), the National Football League, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football. From the mid-1930s and until the retirement of the network in 1999, Mutual ran a highly respected news service accompanied by a variety of popular commentary shows. Mutual pioneered the nationwide late night call-in radio program ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre Setting (narrative), set in the American frontier and commonly associated with Americana (culture), folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West" and depicted in Western media as a hostile, sparsely populated frontier in a state of near-total lawlessness patrolled by outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other Stock character, stock "gunslinger" characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, Manifest Destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. History The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Edison's Black Maria, Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. These featured vet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Shepherd
The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899. It was originally bred as a herding dog, for herding sheep. It has since been used in many other types of work, including disability assistance, search-and-rescue, police work, and warfare. It is commonly kept as a companion dog, and according to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale had the second-highest number of annual registrations in 2013. History During the 1890s, attempts were being made to standardise dog breeds. Dogs were being bred to preserve traits that assisted in their job of herding sheep and protecting their flocks from predators. In Germany this was practised within local communities, where shepherds selected and bred dogs. It was recognised that the breed had the necessary skills for herding sheep, such as intelligence, speed, strength and keen senses o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off (or spinoff) is a radio program, television program, film, video game or any narrative work, derived from already existing works that focus on more details and different aspects from the original work (e.g. particular topics, characters or events). One of the earliest spin-offs of the modern media era, if not the first, happened in 1941 when the supporting character Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve from the old time radio comedy show ''Fibber McGee and Molly'' became the star of his own program ''The Great Gildersleeve'' (1941–1957). In genre fiction, the term parallels its usage in television; it is usually meant to indicate a substantial ''change in narrative viewpoint and activity'' from that (previous) storyline based on the activities of the series' principal protagonist and so is a shift to that action and overall narrative thread of some other protagonist, which now becomes the central or main thread (storyline) of the new sub-series. The ''new protagoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Autry's Melody Ranch
''Gene Autry's Melody Ranch'' is a Western variety radio show in the United States. A 15-minute pilot show aired on December 31, 1939. The program ran from January 7, 1940 to August 1, 1943, and from September 23, 1945 to May 16, 1956.French, Jack & Siegel, David S. (eds.) (2014). "Radio Rides the Range: A Reference Guide to Western Drama on the Air, 1929-1967. McFarland & Company, Inc. . p. 75. The show's entire run was broadcast over the CBS radio network, sponsored by Doublemint gum.Dunning, John. (1976). ''Tune in Yesterday: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, 1925-1976''. Prentice-Hall, Inc. , p. 236. The approximately two-year interruption resulted from Autry's enlistment in the United States Army to serve in World War II. Initially titled ''Doublemint's Melody Ranch'', the show's name was changed to ''Gene Autry's Melody Ranch'' in early 1941. Episodes were 30 minutes long except for a 15-minute version that ran from September 23, 1945 to June 16, 1946. The theme son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Network
There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio ( duplex communication) type used more commonly for public safety and public services such as police, fire, taxicabs, and delivery services. Cell phones are able to send and receive simultaneously by using two different frequencies at the same time. Many of the same components and much of the same basic technology applies to all three. The two-way type of radio network shares many of the same technologies and components as the broadcast-type radio network but is generally set up with fixed broadcast points (transmitters) with co-located receivers and mobile receivers/transmitters or transceivers. In this way both the fixed and mobile radio units can communicate with each other over broad geographic regions ranging in size from small single cities to entire states/prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singing Cowboy
A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. This continues with modern vaquero traditions and within the genre of Western music, and its related New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country music styles. A number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and Riders in the Sky and individual performers such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker and other "singing cowboys". Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero. History The image of the singing cowboy was established in 1925 when Carl T. Sprague of Texas recorded the cowboy song, "When the Work's All Done This Fall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Curtis (actor)
Barry Alan Curtis (September 10, 1943 – January 13, 2019) was an American film and television actor. He was known for playing Ricky North in the American western television series ''The Adventures of Champion''. Born in Los Angeles, California. Curtis decided to become an actor at the age of six. He began his career in 1952, appearing in the film '' The Marrying Kind''. Curtis then appeared in the 1953 film ''Abbott and Costello Go to Mars''. In 1955, he starred in the new CBS western television series ''The Adventures of Champion'' playing Ricky North. He starred alongside actor, Jim Bannon, who played the role of Sandy North. Curtis played Nugget Saunders in the 1955 film ''One Desire''. His television credits include ''Father Knows Best'',''The Lone Ranger'', '' The Sheriff of Cochise'', '' Sergeant Preston of the Yukon'', ''Annie Oakley'' and '' State Trooper''. Curtis retired in 1960, last appearing in the sitcom television series '' Leave It to Beaver''. After retiring, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Bannon
James Shorttel Bannon (April 9, 1911 – July 28, 1984) was an American actor and radio announcer known for his work on the '' I Love a Mystery'' and ''Red Ryder'' series during the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Born in 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri, Bannon attended Rockhurst High School and Rockhurst University, where he played football, baseball, and polo. In 1944, he was ineligible (classified 4-F) for World War II service, owing to an ulcer, so served as a civilian flight instructor. Career Bannon began his broadcasting career on local radio station KCKN, then briefly at KMOX in St. Louis. He moved to Los Angeles in 1937, beginning his show-business career in radio as an announcer on ''The Great Gildersleeve'', ''The Chase and Sanborn Hour'', and '' Stars over Hollywood'', among others, with his most prominent acting role being that of Detective Jack Packard in the serial ''I Love a Mystery''. A motion-picture adaptation of the show, with Bannon reprising his radio characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
